


Cracks in the Armor

by uisceB



Category: Supergirl (TV 2015)
Genre: F/F, Mild Sexual Content, Soulmates, general danvers monthly
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-11-17
Updated: 2017-12-31
Packaged: 2019-02-03 16:21:33
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 2
Words: 10,751
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12751860
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/uisceB/pseuds/uisceB
Summary: General Danvers Monthly Prompt: Soulmate AUFor Astra, sharing pain is the price you pay for sharing love.





	1. Part 1

**Author's Note:**

> Little bit angstier than my normal fare...

 

Prior to Fort Rozz’s unexpected crash into Earth, Astra couldn’t imagine a world without pain. Even if it was no more than a stubbed toe, or hurt feelings, pain always existed. It existed on Krypton, it existed on every world she had traveled. 

Earth was different.

On Earth, Astra couldn’t bleed, she couldn’t bruise, she couldn’t break. She couldn’t get so much as a scraped knee. And it wasn’t for lack of exposure—when Fort Rozz first crashed, she had still needed to fight her way past the guards who survived the impact, and several of the more brutal, mindless prisoners that had escaped. She was amazed to find that none of these skirmishes had harmed her in the least. She should be beaten raw—if absolutely nothing else, she should have some bone fractures, cuts, bruises…she had none of these things. 

For the first several months, the only pain she felt was contained solely to her emotions, but even that, after a time, disappeared. And yes, alright, maybe that was because she made a conscious effort to _make_ that emotional pain disappear, but the rest of her inability to feel pain—to feel _physical_ pain—remained. Nothing could touch her.

At least that’s what she thought.

It started exactly one year after her arrival on Earth. She would wake up with unexpected bruises, the cause of which she couldn’t determine. Paper cuts became a disturbingly frequent event, in spite of the fact that she herself was nowhere near any paper. There was once a stinging burn on her left hand, and another time bruised knuckles as if she’d been beating her fist against steel for hours and hours.

It was odd, mainly because when she found herself in a situation that would normally garner her _own_ pain, she found she was still invincible. She couldn’t be stabbed, couldn’t be shot, felt nothing if a punch was thrown at her. But these tiny, seemingly random bursts of pain and minor wounding would still happen, regardless of what she herself was doing.

She kept these occurrences hidden over the years. None were particularly horrible, after all. It was the shock of their sudden and seemingly sourceless appearance that was unnerving. She kept an eye on her men, trying to see if any of them looked to be bearing marks of any kind. If they did, she never saw them, and so kept hers hidden from them. Rao forbid anyone find a weakness in her.

As the years passed, she grew to expect them, these minor hurts. They were inconvenient, but not debilitating. 

That is until one day when she felt very suddenly like she’d been beaten. Bruises to her ribs, a dislocated shoulder, sharper, almost war-like pains all over her. Again, not _debilitating_ exactly, but far more noticeable, and she had to work to keep them covered up. 

These pains grew in intensity until one night when she was awoken by a searing pain in her shoulder—the kind that nearly made her cry out from the shock. When she looked down at the place of pain, there were deep fang marks embedded into her shoulder, nearly down to the bone. Gasping for air, she ran for the med bay in Fort Rozz. The room hadn’t been used since their arrival on Earth, as there had never been any need for it, but this…

She stumbled with another cry as she crossed the threshold, this time from a burning slice of pain across her back. Fear sprang into her in a way she hadn’t felt in nearly a decade as something unseen tore into the skin at her ribs. She cried out again, collapsing hard onto the floor, holding her side as something drove into her belly. Panting, she cast around for her attacker, but there was nothing, no source, only senseless pain, and hot tears burned in her eyes as she tried to draw ragged breaths through her mouth.

Distantly, she heard footsteps running down the hall toward her, heard someone shout out with a cautious, “General?”

Horror at being found like this, and terror at her own wounds spurring her on, she pushed herself up frantically to her feet, fleeing for the exit to the outside before anyone could see her this way. She clutched at her side, and launched herself into the air the moment she got out, soaring, directionless and in agony, as far from Fort Rozz as she could.

It wasn’t far. The pain in her finally reached its boiling point, and she pitched down through the sky, crashing down into a hill looking over a small seaside city. She dug her fingers desperately into the grass under her, tears streaking down her face, and curled into a tight, protective ball as she took whatever senseless, sourceless beating this was.

At last, the barrage of pain subsided, and she was left trembling, cursing and begging every god she could think of to make it go away. The pain lingered heavily, but at least the assault itself had finished. Exhaustion washed suddenly over her, somehow more powerful than her pain or her fear, and she was drawn down into dreamless sleep.

*

She awoke to a high noon sun shining down on her. She sat up slowly, one hand coming up reflexively to clutch at her side. It hurt, but it no longer threatened to become worse. Cautiously, she raised her hand up to her shoulder, pulling back her over-shirt to see the bite marks closed, almost as if they had been stitched up. She lifted her shirt at the hem, looking down at the tear in her ribs, the gouge at her stomach. They had the look of having been stitched up as well, and the tightness across her back suggested that the same had happened there.

She crossed her legs under her, pressing her forehead down into her palm, squeezing her eyes shut against the threat of a sob. Pain. After ten years. She had forgotten. Never once had she been so affected by pain, not even in her days on the front lines of war. Her wounds had often been worse then, but pain was a part of life. It was expected. But this…she hadn’t felt pain at all for so long, she’d forgotten what it felt like. She had forgotten that the worst part of it was the fear—more so now that ever. To not know where it came from, or if it would strike her again…how could she fight against such a thing?

Taking a steeling breath, she got to her feet, wincing at the twinge of hurt that laced through her body. She couldn’t go back to Fort Rozz like this. Save for a select few, there was no honor in the men there. They would smell her weakness like blood in the water. And they would deal with her accordingly.

In this very moment, however, all pain and fear aside, she was in desperate need of water and food. So, doing what she had only rarely and disdainfully done before, she made her way down to the city below.

She hated human cities. So many smells, so many people, so much noise— _so much noise._ She felt is so much more acutely right now with the rest of the pain in her body. But that wasn’t important right now. What was important right now was water. 

Astra didn’t have any human money to speak of, so she knew she couldn’t purchase anything, but if she remembered correctly, many of the restaurants or cafes in the cities had coolers full of water to be had for free. They’d better, she thought darkly. Humans certainly _wasted_ enough water, the least they could do was offer up some of that waste for those who desperately needed it.

She frowned when she came to one such cafe and found that beside the cooler, they had only disposable, plastic cups. _No_ respect for the state of their world, these humans.

Nevertheless, she was going to have to take what she could get for now. She picked up one of the cups, filled it to the brim with water, and wandered outside to find somewhere to sit.

She was hoping to find a secluded area, but no such thing existed in the city. So she made her way over to the least populated area of a park near the beach, and sat, taking a long, grateful pull from the glass of water. Sated for the moment, she closed her eyes and let her head fall back, soaking in the sun. If there was only one good thing about this world, it was the sun. It allowed her her powers, yes, but even more, it reminded her of her freedom. Years trapped in Fort Rozz with nothing but darkness had nearly killed her spirit. Light and air like this…she lifted the hem of her over-shirt, taking it off so that only the flimsy undershirt was between her and the sun. Better. It almost made her feel like the pain from last night had been nothing more than a dream.

As if to fully rob her of that delusion, the second she thought it, a woman behind her cried, “Holy crap _,_ who on Earth is your soulmate?”

Astra opened her eyes slowly and looked over her shoulder at the woman, annoyed at the intrusion. Annoyed further to learn that the woman seemed to be with a gaggle of other friends who were _also_ now staring in mild horror at Astra.

“My what?” she asked.

“Your soulmate,” the same woman repeated, eyes glued to Astra’s back, where that slice was. 

“I don’t understand.”

“Whose wounds are you sharing?” the woman exclaimed. Her gaze had now drifted to Astra’s shoulder and she grimaced sympathetically. “Are they alright? Which of you was it?”

Creasing her brow in confusion, Astra turned to face the woman and her friends fully. She had always done her best to stay out of human cultures and practices, but her wounds seemed to _mean_ something to these people. Maybe they knew something that could help her.

“I’m afraid I still don’t understand,” she said.

The woman and her friends were now looking down at the bottom of one of the closed gashes in her side that was peeking out from under an exposed slice of flesh.

“Your _soulmate,”_ the woman repeated as if that explained something, now sounding a little troubled, maybe even a little exasperated. Then suddenly, surprise, and deep sympathy washed over her features, enough so to make Astra flinch.

“Oh my god, you poor thing!” she cried. “You haven’t _found_ your soulmate yet, have you? And with _those_ wounds—how terrifying, not to know where they’re coming from. I mean, it’s always a _little_ unnerving in the beginning once you start displaying your mate’s symptoms for pain, but normally they aren’t so _horrible…”_

Astra shut her eyes, fingers going to her temples in frustration. “Please speak clearly,” she said sharply, aware that it would be wrong to hurt a human given her strength, but finding it tempting nonetheless as nothing coming out of her mouth was making any sense. “I’m not…I’m not from around here. Please explain what you’re babbling about.”

The woman looked taken aback, sharing a look with her friends. Fortunately, it was one of the friends who chose to speak, rather than her. Finally. Hopefully someone with some _sense._ This friend, this boy, held out his arm, and the girl beside him did the same. 

Astra frowned. They wore what she assumed were wedding or engagement rings, but much more noticeably, they both had a matching scar running up their forearms, and an identical bruise at their elbows.

“I…kind of assumed…” the boy started to say, then broke off, wisely deciding simply to answer her question, rather than countering her on some point she wasn’t sure about. “It’s our link,” he said. “Each person…you share the same wounds as your soulmate beginning in adolescence. Usually just bumps and bruises, sometimes broken bones, but nothing _that_ serious, at least not usually, not _here_ anyway, I guess that’s probably different in other places, with war and things, but…god, those look _awful._ Did _you_ get hurt, or did your soulmate?”

Astra blinked at him, stunned. _Soulmate_. A rough translation of that word did exist on Krypton, but it was mostly a construct for story-telling. And certainly there were no _symptoms_ for such a thing. But here on Earth…she rubbed at the bite marks on her shoulder uncertainly. Perhaps on Earth, a _soulmate_ wasn’t just a concept. It was a real thing. A real thing that manifested itself in the sharing of pain between partners.

She needed to get away from these people and their looks of concern and uncertainty. 

“I’m sure we’ll both be fine,” she murmured, getting to her feet and snatching up her over-shirt. She broke into a run back up the hill, as far away from prying eyes as she could. When she was sure no one was looking, she leapt into the air and let the wind carry her to the highest point overlooking the city.

_A soulmate._

She stood on the edge of the hill, taking the stiff breeze head-on, like it would clear her mind somehow. Her hand went back to her shoulder, rubbing it, feeling pain again, though not physical this time. This entire time she’d been here on Earth, she had been linked to someone, and hadn’t even known it. All these years of feeling isolated, even amongst her men. Especially amongst them. Years of feeling that she had no one except her memories of her family on Krypton before it died.

But all this time there was a person, a living person, whose every pain she was feeling, even if she wasn’t able to feel her own. 

She felt tears in her eyes again, and clamped down hard on her shoulder, digging her fingernails in to keep herself from crying. There was someone she was linked to here, someone real, not a memory, a real, living person. A person who, when she first got here, got only minor hurts—paper cuts, banged-up knees, a few sprains. And then, all of a sudden, _this._ This excruciating pain, this _attack—_ this attack that had clearly come from something that was not human.

She stiffened again as the reality of the situation hit her. The pain she felt now belonged to someone else, and that someone could be anywhere, perhaps alone, perhaps afraid, perhaps lost.

For once without plan or strategy, she launched herself into the air, determined to find them.

*

She didn’t know what she had been thinking, just…flying off, hoping for the best that she might somehow magically stumble upon her soulmate. Weeks went by, then months, and there was no sign of them. But she did feel pain every so often. Thankfully, that pain manifested almost solely in the form of bruises—particularly on her knuckles.

So her soulmate was alive, that was important. And the wounds from her attack were healed to the point of no longer hurting at all. Astra started noticing a pattern in these new bruises. They came every other day, but always between the same hours of the day. It was a schedule. As if her soulmate was training for something, fighting. Military? Recreational? Entertainment? It was hard to say for certain, but it seemed that if nothing else, her soulmate was in a place of consistency. Growing stronger, and better each day, if the lessening number of bruises over the course of those few months were any indication.

It wasn’t what Astra had hoped for—if she’d had her way, she would have found her soulmate by now, figured out how to deal with this situation. But for now, at least, it was reassuring to know they were alive, and seemingly safe. 

Maybe she should just leave it at that. Her soulmate was safe, so there was no reason to find them. She could learn to expect it now, these sudden pains. She could accept them as a constant in her life, rather than wasting her time trying to find the person attached to that pain. After all, what did _soulmate_ mean, except for the promise of even _more_ pain if confronted in real life? Best to simply be assured of her soulmate’s existence from the minor hurts. And she could allow herself to feel relief, or perhaps even fondness at each time a bruise bloomed on her that didn’t belong there. That was enough. That had to be enough.

But then came a second attack. Five months since the first one.

Astra gasped as the unseen assailant rained blow after blow upon her soulmate, and she sank to the ground, bracing herself against the pain. It wasn’t enough. She had to go save them, there had to be a way…

She bit down on her lip as something tore shallowly across her stomach—something with claws. Splitting pain was going through her head, but there was something strange, something…

She felt under her shirt where the claw marks were and felt her heart begin to thump at the shape of them. There was a particular prisoner aboard Fort Rozz, one who had only very begrudgingly had submitted to her when they had escaped. He was cruel, and he was easily angered, and possessed seven clawed fingers on each hand. Seven. The same number as her own new marks.

Her mind raced as she tried to remember what she could of him through the whirlwind of pain her body was trying to respond to. There was a place he had liked to go, out in the desert a few miles from Fort Rozz. He liked killing things for sport—animals, he always promised with a glint in his eyes. Never humans. That’s what he said. Still, she had tried many times to restrict him, because animals or no, his methods were cruel. The sport he spoke of wasn’t in the killing, but in the maiming. So she had forbidden it.

But it had been months since that first attack on her soulmate—months since Astra had fled Fort Rozz in shame and fear of her own weakness. With no one to stop him, who was to say he hadn’t returned to his old habits? Who was to say he hadn’t found her soulmate and decided to make her his new sport?

Trying to wrestle her strained breathing under control, Astra pushed up into the air. The seven-clawed swipe to her soulmate’s stomach was shallow, so in theory, she was in no danger of bleeding out like this, but how long until something worse happened? Astra picked up her pace, honing in on the area she suspected this fight to be.

She wasn’t wrong. Out beyond that sparse scattering of desert plant life, the hulking form of her former follower loomed over the body of a human who was struggling madly against his grip.

Heedless of consequences, Astra felt her eyes burn red, and heat shot from them, rays tearing down into her ex-supporter’s back.

He roared in surprise, wheeling around to see who had attacked him. Astra didn’t give him the time to register her—she remembered his kind, their sensitivity to anything done to the underside of their necks, and made a b-line for that, striking him there with all her might.

She heard a snap—it hadn’t been her intention to kill him, but if that’s what it took, then so be it. She stumbled back as he collapsed, quickly regaining her footing so she could find her soulmate.

There. Lying in the sand just yards away. A human. A young woman. Fragile.

Astra rushed to her side, panic rising in her when she saw that she wasn’t moving. She shook her head, scolding herself for her panic. Of course this woman was still alive, _she_ was. These injuries were not grave enough to kill. But this woman had been fighting this entire time. It wasn’t just her wounds that were holding her down, it was exhaustion, and she seemed hardly to even be aware that Astra was hovering over her.

She needed to get her to her home, get her somewhere safe. Humans often kept wallets with them, identifications of some kind, sometimes those identifications had addresses printed across them. She dug around the woman’s pockets, somehow unsurprised to find that she was dressed in tactical gear, outfitted with a large knife and a gun holster at her belt. The gun itself was missing—probably thrown aside in her fight. She was clearly a soldier of some sort. But a soldier all alone? All alone, and fighting creatures not from her planet?

At last, Astra was able to find an ID for her. She pulled it out, looking it over. It was a government ID. It classified this woman as FBI, but Astra doubted that was true. From what snatches of information she had gleaned of human culture over the years, the FBI would not be involved in fighting hostile _aliens_. It had to be a cover of some sort. 

She let her gaze linger on the name. Alexandra Danvers.

_Alexandra Danvers._

Alexandra Danvers, whose every pain was hers, and for some reason, Astra was struck with the impossible feeling that she loved her for that. Ridiculous. She wasn’t even _from_ this planet, yet somehow this human construct of _soulmate_ had influenced _her._

She returned her attention to the ID, disappointed to find that there was no address printed. She could wake Alexandra up, she supposed, and _ask_ her where her home was, but something stopped her. The idea of waking this woman up, of having to actually face her…that was terrifying. She should just bring her to a hospital. They could patch her up there, and send her home, and Astra could return to her solitude, where she could be comforted by the minor hurts of her soulmate—just from very far away. From very far away where she wouldn’t have to be with her.

That sounded like a good idea. Hospital it was. Then disappear. 

Astra gathered her up in her arms, finding her limp, with no fight left in her. She lifted as gently as she could into the air, making her way back toward the city.

She didn’t get far, however. Her own wounds—well, Alexandra’s wounds—made it difficult for her to move, and that was no good when trying to fly. She touched down, carrying Alexandra over to the mouth of a very small cave. Hardly a cave at all. More like a small indent in one of the rock formations that cropped up from time to time across the desert. But small or no, it would provide them with protection for the night.

She laid Alexandra down as gently as she could, finding her still unconscious. Exhaustion, she reminded herself. Those injuries were bad enough to keep her down for now, but nowhere near enough to kill. She was alright.

Astra sighed, settling down on her side beside her. There was still just enough sunlight in the evening sky for her to see her clearly. Astra felt a sort of softening in herself as she gazed down at her, like something was melting, warm and comforting inside her. Alexandra was a stunning mix of hard and soft, angled and curved. Her features were beautiful, almost sweet, but there was a hard set to her jaw, even in sleep. She was a fighter, in one way or another, and Astra felt like something in her flared, trying to reach out for a similar energy in this woman.

Maybe she was just imagining it, but for a second, it seemed like that energy was found, and the flare in her became brighter, before simmering down, returning her to that place of strange warmth and comfort. She wanted Alexandra to feel that same comfort, even if she was asleep. Hesitantly, she lifted her hand and brushed away a few strands of hair that had fallen across Alexandra’s face. Her fingers lingered there for a moment, then traced down to her jaw, thumb brushing the edge of it softly.

She sighed, settling down more comfortably now, as close to Alexandra as she dared, head resting just against her shoulder. It was strange. Lying here like this, she felt safe, as if this fragile, injured human were protecting _her_ somehow. That didn’t make any sense of course, but neither did a lot of things on this world.

Daringly, she draped her arm over the sleeping woman’s waist, too tired to talk herself out of it, and drifted off to sleep.


	2. Part 2

Morning brought clarity to her. 

The human was still asleep, and either she, or Astra, had moved in closer over the course of the night so they were very nearly the same person.

A dull pain clutched somewhere in Astra’s chest at their closeness, and now she remembered: a soulmate was nothing but pain. And _her_ soulmate was _human._ She couldn’t do this, she realized, heart picking up pace as if something were chasing her.

She turned over on her side, breaking their tangle of limbs, but Alexandra, still sleeping, moved with her, arm squeezing around her middle, and face nuzzling into the back of Astra’s neck. 

Wonderful. So Astra had a _clingy_ soulmate.

Or maybe not.

Maybe when Alexandra had nuzzled into her, some of Astra’s hair had tickled her nose, because all of a sudden, Astra felt her stir more wakefully behind her. A sharp inhale after a beat indicated Alexandra having woken fully and realized her surprising situation. Astra felt her withdraw her arm quickly, and scuffle backward so they were no longer touching.

Astra remained motionless, feigning continued sleep even though her heart was pounding. It took every ounce of self-control she had to stop herself from jolting when she felt fingertips no more than a breath away from her skin, tracing over the scars on her back, then up to her shoulder. Full contact was never made—Alexandra wasn’t trying to connect, she was mapping, likely discovering what Astra was to her, the way they mirrored one another. 

Astra heard a soft curse fall from under Alexandra’s breath.

She kept her breathing as even as she could. She would wait. She would leave this in Alexandra’s hands. She would either stay, or she would leave. 

The thought of _leave_ made something twist in the pit of her stomach and she wanted to curl up and beg Alexandra to stay. She had never felt safer than she had last night, asleep with this woman. If Alexandra left, where would that feeling go? It had taken her mere seconds to become attached to her, mere seconds to feel a sudden connection that at first let her feel calm, only to twist into what she now recognized as a dependent weakness. Alexandra should leave her. They’d both be stronger and better for it.

This knowledge didn’t stop the way that cold emptiness slithered from her gut to fill her entire body with despair as she heard Alexandra get quickly to her feet, and run— _run—_ from her. Astra strained her hearing, catching Alexandra’s voice, presumably into a communication device of some kind, urgently calling for immediate extraction from their location. Astra remembered the ID she had seen on her soulmate, the one that claimed her as a government agent of some kind. 

So she had chosen to leave. They were probably both of a mind—a soulmate was weakness, and literal pain. At least Alexandra had sense.

Astra waited until she heard the low drone of a helicopter landing where she knew Alexandra to be. That’s all she had needed to know. She sat up, and prepared to take off, but made the mistake of looking over her shoulder across the tenth of a mile Alexandra had run from her. The human was looking directly at her as the helicopter’s propeller beat swirls of wind and sand around her. She knew she was probably no more than a shape to Alexandra from this distance, but with the improved vision this planet’s sun had given her, Astra could see Alexandra’s face perfectly, and it looked afraid.

Astra turned from her and launched herself into the air.

*

She couldn’t go back to Fort Rozz, not after that first unseen attack on her soulmate that had driven Astra from the place. She was unfit to be a leader now, and truth be told, she had no interest in _being_ a leader to the thousands of violent creatures who kept Fort Rozz as their base. She had only ever led them in an attempt to keep their violent tendencies under control, which had worked as long as she was immune to pain, but now…there was no going back.

That didn’t stop her from keeping an eye on them. Whenever one crept toward human cities and towns, she would follow them, she would hunt them down, she would kill them. The humans weren’t her people—but in some ways they were, now that she was linked in such an intimate way to one of them. 

So she brought silent retribution down on those hostiles who sought to go after the humans. It was likely they thought her dead after she had disappeared so many months ago, a ghost now. And those who encountered her never got the chance to tell anyone that she was still alive. They never got the chance to tell anyone anything ever again when she was done with them. 

It wasn’t heroism in the way she once tried to embody—it was the opposite, in fact. Once a great leader in a military sworn to protect those who couldn’t fight for themselves…she was now reduced to this. This shadow that hunted off-worlder convicts as if she were some sort of phantom champion of the human race.

One night, one of her former followers slipped past her vigil. When she finally caught on, he had already made it to National City, the nearest human residence. He was fast—as fast as her, and clever too. She hunted him for days, never quite able to catch him.

In the end, someone else did.

Astra stared, hidden in the shadows, as this golden-haired young woman soared through the night sky. She took him down with relative ease, quickly followed by a handful of black-clad human soldiers who detained him. It was neither the capture nor the victory itself that held Astra’s gaze; it was the young woman herself. Against all reason, there was no denying—no more than a few yards from her, flew her little niece. Not so little anymore. A hero.

Of course Kara was a hero.

Astra almost called out to her, but stopped herself before she could get the name out. She didn’t know what Alura might have told Kara, she didn’t know how or if Kara’s memories had been skewed, or changed, if Alura had honored her memory when she spoke of her, or sullied it. 

She couldn’t imagine her sister would ever do such a thing, but she couldn’t bank on it. She would rather not exist to Kara at all than exist as her enemy.

So she said nothing, and stayed hidden until her niece disappeared.

She didn’t leave the city completely, however. Her niece had a title, Supergirl, and it was like a lightning rod for the escapees from Fort Rozz who came to take her life for what her mother had done by sentencing them. So Astra stayed, protecting her when need be from the shadows.

One particular night, she was caught doing so. Not by Kara, but by a handful of those soldiers—those agents, she had learned, having overheard—agents from an organization called the DEO. They chased after her, having seen her kill their mark, perceiving her as a further threat. 

She should have been able to outmaneuver them with no problem, but one of them shot at her. The missile didn’t hit her fully, but grazed her arm, some of it splintering into her skin. Her eyes went wide in shock as she pitched downward toward the rooftop of the building beneath her. This time she was hurt by something real, she wasn’t just experiencing someone else’s pain. Whatever this green substance was…she tried to dig the slivers out of her arm, but it only burned her further, weakening her.

She jolted at the sound of those agents beginning to scale the walls of the building, still relentlessly after her. She tried half-heartedly to fly away, unsurprised to find she was unable to. So, clutching her arm, she fled down the emergency stairs instead, like a powerless human.

*

Honestly, even in her injured state, she’d thought she would be able to get farther. On clearing the building, she had immediately ducked into the safety of a small, deserted alleyway, assuming she hadn’t been seen.

As it so happened, she was seen by exactly one DEO agent who chased after her, boots clattering hard on the concrete ground.

“Freeze!” the agent shouted, a female voice that somehow sounded familiar to Astra.

Astra ignored it, pressing her hand harder into her bleeding arm, and charging ahead.

“No—wait, stop!” the voice shouted again. “Please! Please stop!”

Astra halted, thrown by the plea. It wasn’t a command.

She turned slowly, going rigid as her gaze fell on a human— _her_ human, her Alexandra, standing mere feet from her. The human was dressed, as she had been the first time she saw her, in full black tactical gear, armed lightly but effectively with two guns held by holsters at her thigh, and two large knives at her belt.

None of these weapons was pointed at Astra. In fact, it was Alexandra who was holding her hands up in a sign of non-hostility.

Astra stared, waiting for her to speak. The human seemed to be wrestling control over her breathing—she must have been chasing her up and down the building the whole time. Her face was sweaty, strands of hair clinging to her neck. 

“I’ve been—“ Alexandra said hesitantly after she caught her breath. “I’ve been trying to find you.” She swallowed, lowering her hands. Astra saw that she had an open graze of a bullet wound that precisely mirrored her own. “Will you come with me?”

Astra watched her closely for a long time.

“Come with you where?” she asked finally.

“I live just a couple blocks down from here,” Alexandra told her. “They won’t follow us there. And we can…I just want to talk to you. Please.”

Astra hesitated, gaze falling again to her human’s matching wound. Then she nodded sharply. 

“Lead the way.”

*

Alexandra informed Astra that she was a doctor, which came as some relief when the human sat down on her couch beside her with a pair of tweezers, scissors, a spool of thread, a needle, and a roll of bandages. She had taken off the Kevlar vest, and instructed Astra to take off her over-shirt so she could get to the bullet wound easier, leaving her in a thin, sleeveless tank top.

Alexandra hesitated, lips pressed together uncertainly, before locking eyes with Astra. “This is probably going to hurt a little,” she warned.

She began to reach forward with the tweezers, but Astra took her wrist to stop her. “Then it will hurt you,” she said, somewhere between a question and a statement.

“Not from what I’ve been told,” Alexandra said, sounding thoughtful. “Apparently um, _soulmates…”_ she sounded uncertain about the word, as if it had an odd shape to it, an odd taste. Astra didn’t blame her.

“…Soulmates,” Alexandra continued, “can’t hurt themselves by hurting each other. We feel it when one of us is hurt by another, but this…I mean if I’m sewing you up, I’m not gonna be feeling the needle go into _my_ arm. That would just make this kind of ridiculous.”

She offered a smile that Astra wanted to respond to but couldn’t quite manage. _Soulmate._ It was different like this, to have her animated, awake, and talking, revealing things about herself, what she knew, what she didn’t know. The way her face moved, the expressions that flittered across her. Beautiful. But also strange in its unpredictability. She realized how accustomed she’d become to the stiffness of her former followers, and their terror when she killed them. She hadn’t really seen a person act like a person in…years.

She loved it.

“I’m just basing that off of suspicion,” Alexandra went on at Astra’s continued silence. “A friend of mine accidentally elbowed her soulmate in the eye one time, but she didn’t end up getting hurt herself, so I’m just guessing. I don’t know for sure.” Her lips pressed tightly together for a moment. “I didn’t actually think I ever _would_ know for sure. You’re um…you’re kind of a surprise to me.”

She cleared her throat and tried to bring her hands to the broken slivers of green in Astra’s arm, but Astra stopped her again.

“Why would I be a surprise?” she asked, cocking her head curiously. “I thought all humans had a soulmate. Didn’t you feel…”

She broke off.

“You never felt me,” she realized. “Because I couldn’t get hurt.”

Alexandra nodded, lowering her hands. Her brow was creased into something that looked hurt, but distantly so. Maybe confused. She was processing something.

“Every one of my friends, my sister…they all started showing their soulmate’s pains starting around 13 or 14,” she said once she seemed to have gotten her thoughts in order. “My mom reassured me that she didn’t start showing hers till she was 15, and my dad not till he was 17. Everyone kept trying to tell me that I’d start showing soon, it took different amounts of time for different people—but ‘different amounts of time’ still meant within your teenage years. When I hit 20 and I still hadn’t felt anything or displayed anything, I sort of just…gave up.

“Don’t get me wrong, there are definitely people out there who don’t have soulmates,” Alexandra added hastily, “but they’re happy that way. They’re called bondless—it’s their nature to not want to be linked to someone else, so they never display anyone’s pain except their own. So for the longest time, I just assumed I had to be one of them, and that’s what I told people who asked. I told people I was bondless. I got a lot of different reactions from that—some people accepted it like I was telling them what the weather was, some idiots acted like they pitied me. There used to be a stigma on bondless people, like they were inferior,” she explained, when Astra cocked her head curiously. “Most people don’t think that anymore, but you still get those few assholes sometimes.”

“And…what was _your_ reaction to being bondless—or thinking you were bondless?” Astra asked, uncertain whether she wanted to hear the answer.

“I, um.” Alex looked down searchingly for a moment, then shrugged tightly. Defensively. “I was confused,” she admitted finally. “Bondless people seemed… _happy_ to be bondless. Like I said, it’s just…how they are, they don’t have a soulmate because they have no desire for that link, it isn’t who they are. But for me…I didn’t feel _happy_ at the idea of not having a soulmate. But then I just tried to rationalize it, y’know, that maybe it wasn’t that I really _wanted_ a soulmate, maybe I was just _curious_ since everyone I knew at least displayed the marks even if they hadn’t actually _found_ their soulmate yet. So I kind of just resigned myself to it. But I never thought…”

She broke off, gaze locking intensely with Astra’s, searching and dark.

“I’m twenty-six now,” she said, “and I _never_ displayed signs of a mate. Not once. So when I saw you—when I…woke up next to you, and saw… _me_ …my bruises, my scars—on you—it freaked me out. And I shouldn’t have run, I know that, I’m so sorry, I just…you surprised me.”

Well that was certainly an understatement—enough of one that Astra actually felt herself smiling unexpectedly.

“Not to be competitive,” she said, “but I think my surprise beats your surprise.”

Now Alexandra’s face broke into a careful smile to match hers, and she nodded. “You’re Kryptonian,” she said. She looked so pleased by the fact that she had figured that out, eyes slanted and bright with the joy of discovery. _“You_ couldn’t get hurt, but you’ve had to deal with all _my_ aches and pains this whole time.”

“It was quite a learning curve,” Astra said. “Particularly because I got used to only receiving paper cuts for the longest time.”

“Science book nerd growing up,” Alexandra said, raising her hand. “Guilty.”

“I wasn’t expecting to go from that to being beaten almost to death,” Astra said.

Alexandra’s face drained. “I’m sorry,” she said, voice hardly above a whisper. “I’m so sorry—most people try to be so careful when they know they’ve got a soulmate they need to protect. I just figured since I didn’t have one, I could go rushing headlong into danger. It was my first field mission with the DEO. It, um…really did not go well.”

“Trust me, I’m well aware,” Astra said with a smile, and Alexandra huffed out a grateful laugh at her humor.

“Well,” she said, then cleared her throat, raising the tweezers again questioningly. “How ‘bout we get that Kryptonite out of you?”

“Kryptonite?”

“That green stuff you got shot with,” Alexandra clarified. “It’s radioactive rock from your planet. As far as we know, it’s the only thing that can hurt someone like you. So. This is the first wound of yours I’ve ever shown. I’d kind of love to get it out of you— it’s pretty painful for me too right now.”

“Of course,” Astra said quickly, offering her arm. 

She watched the way Alexandra worked, the intense focus of her gaze on Astra’s wound as she picked out the green slivers, the precise workings of slender fingers manipulating the tweezers so she never missed a piece, nor caught Astra’s skin by accident. The human was correct in her theory that they were unable to hurt themselves by hurting each other, a blessed relief for both of them. The thread and bandages ended up being unnecessary, as the wound closed itself up the moment the slivers of Kryptonite were removed, and Alexandra gasped as her own bullet graze healed over at the same time. She looked up at Astra with wide eyes.

“Alright, that was kind of cool,” she said.

Astra smiled at the look on her face, a sudden feeling of not needing to fear weakness washing over her. She had assumed they could only ever be hurt and weakened by one another, or become dependent and useless, but…this didn’t feel like weakness right now. This felt like connection, _true_ connection, the likes of which Astra hadn’t felt since being with her family on Krypton. And even then, it was a different type of connection. This was something new, something both thrilling and comforting.

She wasn’t exactly certain how to proceed from here though, so simply looked down at her healed arm and offered, “Thank you, Alexandra.”

“You can just call me Alex,” her human corrected. “Alexandra’s usually what my mom calls me when I’m in trouble.”

“And do you get in trouble often?” Astra asked, surprising herself with the teasing tone in her own voice.

“Well, let’s see,” Alex said with mock thoughtfulness, and quite suddenly her hand was brushing along Astra’s shoulder, and down her arm. 

Astra blinked rapidly in surprise, before realizing that Alex was simply touching her hand to some of the most recent wounds she’d fallen victim to. 

“If the scars you’ve got because of me are any indication…yeah, I’m kind of a trouble magnet,” Alex said, a mischievous glint in her eyes. Then her eyes widened again, like she realized how close she’d just brought the two of them, and she quickly withdrew her hand.

“Anyway,” she said, looking defensive and self-conscious again. “Sorry you have to deal with all this…me on you.” She gestured all-encompassingly at Astra’s littered body.

Astra wasn’t exactly able to suppress a raised eyebrow at her human’s phrasing. She had spent a fair amount of time reading human books since landing here, and wasn’t above the enjoyment of a little word play which was often of the raunchier nature. It was one of the things that had actually given her something to laugh about in her time here. Learning languages on different worlds was always entertaining, but humans certainly had a knack for double meanings.

She probably shouldn’t draw attention to this one, though. Probably. Although, the nature of soulmates…

“You don’t have to apologize, Alex,” she said. She was glad she went with that one. Alex looked so earnest right now, so genuinely sorry that she was the cause of Astra’s pain. Best not to belittle that right now. Or maybe at all. What about that _right now?_ They were so stilted now, what about a future? If there was one.

As if thinking along exactly the same lines, Alex cleared her throat and asked hesitantly, “So…do you want this? This whole soulmate thing? I mean, I know you’re displaying my wounds, so, y’know, we _are_ soulmates, but is that…I guess I don’t really know how it works, like do you even like me, or…?”

“I feel safe with you,” Astra interrupted her. Alex went silent. “Even when you were the one hurt all those months ago in the desert, I still felt safe. And I want to know you, if that’s what you mean.”

“Yeah, that’s what I mean,” Alex said, nodding, and looking almost relieved. “I want to know you too.”

They both looked at each other in tense silence for a moment, and Astra was confident they were both feeling…as completely bewildered as the other. Alex had a scientific mind, Astra had a tactical mind, and yet, they both sat there, unmoving, and painfully uncertain for much too long.

Because what was _I want to know you?_ There was the human practice of getting to know a person that Astra had read about, and more recently, observed. There was often food involved, sometimes entertainment…there was a lot of talking. Nervous laughter.

Or there was the other kind of getting to know a person. Physical. 

In a way, this was more appealing to Astra than talking. She enjoyed learning languages, but trying to _know_ someone always went beyond words, and Rao did she ever want to touch Alex. Just touch. More was obviously desirable, but anything right now, something real, something solid, something physical. She wanted to trace her fingers over ever line and curve of Alex’s body, wanted to find every mirrored scar that she now bore because of her. She wanted to kiss her.

Instead, she let herself be bullied by her discomfort and said, “I could meet you somewhere tomorrow? We could talk, get to know each other then?”

Alex gave a jerky, anxious-looking nod, then suggested completely the opposite:

“Do you want to stay the night?” she asked.

Her eyes closed and her face contorted in an immediate cringe at her own words. “I mean, not to do anything,” she added quickly. She peeked her eyes open, looking sheepish, and Astra’s heart melted. “I just…it’s like you said, I felt so _safe_ sleeping with you. I mean, I didn’t know it, I was really out of it, but I’ve thought about that night for months now, ever since it happened, and I just feel…calm, every time I think of it. Just, I wouldn’t mind it…” She huffed uncomfortably, then tried again. “I wouldn’t mind it if you stayed. If you want. Just to sleep. I’ll take a shower first, y’know, so I don’t smell after all that running, but…after that, if you want to stay. You could.”

As if Astra was actually going to say no to that.

She nodded, adding, “As long as I can shower afterwards, I’d love to stay.”

*

There was an awkward knock on the bathroom door as Astra tried to wash the day off her skin.

“I promise I’m not looking!” came Alex’s voice as the door opened, and the human shuffled in with her back turned and her eyes covered. She held up a pile of clothes. “Just gonna leave these here for you to wear.”

Astra cocked her head, taking in the scene fondly through the steamed glass of the shower as Alex shuffled blindly through her own bathroom to try to find a surface to leave the clothes on.

Deciding it might be a little funny to tease her, Astra said, “You don’t have to bother, Alex, I usually don’t wear anything to sleep.”

This wasn’t true at all anymore—not since she’d left the warmth and safety of Krypton—but it was still funny to see Alex stumble.

“Oh. Um. Okay. That’s fine. That’s no problem. That’s cool. I’ll just leave these here just for, in case you, ‘cuz it’s kind of cold, but that’s good. That’s fine. Is the water warm enough by the way? I didn’t use it all, did I?”

“It’s fine, Alex.”

“Alright. Good. That’s good. I’ll let you get back to it then.”

The human exited quickly, shutting the door behind herself, and leaving the pile of clothes on the sink.

Astra tilted her head back under the water, running her fingers through sudsy hair. It was a comfort to see Alex’s haplessness. Here was a human, for whom soulmates were a regular custom, and yet she seemed to have no idea what to do with herself. It was a relief to see that they were both on the same page. It made Astra feel less like an alien, more like she really was home when she was with Alex.

And seeing her fumble was definitely endearing, especially after having seen her battle valiantly with that one hostile in the desert all those months ago, and how persistently Alex had chased after her, even though she was afraid. Here was a very brave human in the face of potential danger, but a very uncomfortable one socially—at least when it came to this new dynamic. 

It was sweet, and it brought out a feeling of light-heartedness and a penchant for teasing that Astra hadn’t felt—again, since she was on Krypton. Home.

She decided to take pity on Alex after her shower, and clothed herself in the oversized T-shirt and shorts her human had left for her. Toweling her hair dry, she opened the door and padded down the hall to Alex’s room, lingering at the threshold.

Alex was sitting cross-legged on top of the covers of her bed looking completely lost, like she’d never seen this bed before in her life. “Which fucking side?” she muttered strickenly under her breath, looking back and forth from the left side of the bed to the right with wide, bewildered eyes.

“Alex,” Astra said, and Alex very nearly toppled off the bed in surprise at her sudden appearance. Astra smiled gently, walking forward a few steps. “For the last year, I have been sleeping alternately on the ground in the desert, and in abandoned buildings in your city. Previous to that, I slept in a prison cell for many years. And previous to _that,_ I was the high general of Krypton’s military, during which time I slept in numerous uncomfortable excuses for lodgings on alien worlds.” She stepped forward again, gesturing at the bed. “Please sleep on whichever side is most comfortable for you—I’m really not picky.”

“Oh—right, okay,” Alex said with a sheepish smile at having been caught muttering to herself. She scooted over to the right side of the bed, but remained seated upright on top of the covers.

Astra joined her on the left, settling down on her side, facing Alex. Alex took her laying down as a cue to lay down herself, mirroring her position to face her as well. The human’s eyes were wide, but not as nervous as before, as she cast her gaze across Astra’s face, down her neck, taking her in.

She tilted her head when her gaze fell to Astra’s shoulder where the oversized T-shirt had slipped down to expose it.

“That’s so weird,” she whispered, and Astra lifted an eyebrow. “This,” Alex clarified, reaching forward to touch her hand to the closed-over bite mark on Astra’s shoulder from—what was it, nearly two years ago now?

Alex licked her lips self-consciously before lifting her gaze back up to meet Astra’s, keeping her hand on the scar. “I almost died that night,” she said. “And I never would have done that—not _ever_ —if I’d known I was putting someone else through it too. I would’ve been more careful, I would’ve tried to keep you safe, I’d never want anything bad to happen to you…”

Astra closed her hand over Alex’s where it was brushing a thumb over the scar, and smiled reassuringly. “I’m just glad _you_ were never hurt because of me,” she said. “Barring tonight, of course. I’m thinking I should stay far away from that Kryptonite, for both our sakes. Between you and me, I think we’re fairly prone to injuries.”

Alex gave her a soft, closed-lip smile, then took her hand, where one of the most recent wounds—a cut across the palm—was, and pressed her lips to it. The press of lips was warm, and it lingered, and Astra couldn’t contain a small sigh at the contact. 

Alex looked up at the sound of the sigh, eyes nearly black—desire written there, hesitant but clear. Astra nodded, and Alex let go of her hand, shifting closer to her. She propped herself up slightly and brought her hand to Astra’s cheek, thumb stroking the ridge of it, eyes locking with hers—searching, reading, but no longer questioning.

Astra tilted her head up to meet her as Alex dipped down to kiss her, only to blink in confusion when Alex pulled back at the last second.

“Um,” Alex said, in what Astra was beginning to suspect would be chronic awkward sweetness, “so this is kind of bad timing…I really should’ve asked this before, but. I didn’t really…what’s your name?”

Astra gave a surprised blink, then grinned as she remembered that no, she really hadn’t ever said.

“It’s Astra,” she told her.

“Astra,” Alex repeated in a whisper. “That’s really beautiful.”

Not sure how to respond to that other than grinning wider, Astra reached up and ran her fingers through Alex’s hair, pulling her down to kiss her fully this time. 

Alex gave a small, muffled sound of pleasure at nearly the first moment of contact, and both the sound and feeling of it sent white-hot bolts of desire shooting through Astra’s entire body. She tightened her grip in Alex’s hair and parted her lips slightly, urging Alex to move with her. 

Alex responded eagerly, a sudden flare of excitement seeming to leap in her that was just exuberant enough that Astra was reminded of the nature of humans and their soulmates—more likely than not, Alex had never been with someone like this before. Perhaps she had experimented with others who weren’t her soulmate when she was younger, but Alex’s excitement now felt pure in its inexperience. She wasn’t shy—apparently not with regards to anything physical, including this. She kissed passionately, and boldly, seeming determined to commit every single sliver of pleasure to memory, lingering, tasting. There was something unexpectedly joyous about the way she kissed, and Astra’s heart thundered against her chest, sharing and reveling in that same feeling.

Letting that tidal wave of sensations take over her movements, Astra pushed on Alex’s shoulder, rolling her over, pinning her down and kissing her harder. Alex moaned against her lips, and Astra hummed in kind, hand sliding down to her throat, and then skimming over to her side. She snuck her hand under the hem, feeling soft, tantalizingly hot skin under her hands. She began pushing Alex’s shirt up, but bent her head to press her mouth to Alex’s ear.

“Tell me to stop and I will,” she breathed, scratching down Alex’s stomach.

Alex arched with a hiss, but quickly shook her head. “No, don’t—don’t stop.”

Astra smiled, and kissed slowly down her neck as she continued to push the hem up until it reached just beneath her breasts. Abandoning it here, she skimmed her hand down Alex’s abdomen, hooking a finger in the waistband of her shorts, and running it teasingly back and forth.

“Wait—“ Alex gasped when Astra tugged a little. “Wait.” She tried to sit up, so Astra backed up to give her room to do so, cocking her head curiously. 

“I just…I wanna see you,” her human said breathlessly, hands twisting plaintively in the folds of her shirt.

Astra smiled, and obeyed, pulling off her own shirt and letting it drop somewhere behind her.

Alex’s eyes darkened infinitely as they raked over Astra’s bared torso, and, as if pulled by some invisible string, she leaned desperately forward to take one of Astra’s breasts in her mouth.

Astra groaned at the sensation of her hot, wet mouth sucking at her like that, and Alex moaned against her skin in return, like she was pleased that she had been able to draw that sound from Astra. 

Her human was growing more confident, more insatiable, hands roaming over her, finally pushing her back and pinning her, breaking contact for only a second before surging back down to bite marks into her chest. Astra found herself panting, loosing breathless moans as Alex ground down into her, seeming to want so much she could barely contain herself. 

And Astra was being pulled right along with her. This was what a soulmate felt like, like gratitude, like coming home…she felt like laughing, like crying, fighting her, loving her—

She gasped in surprise as Alex slipped her hand under the waistband of Astra’s shorts, halting all other movements as her entire attention was drawn to where her hand was cupping Astra’s sex. 

“Fuck,” Alex whispered, watching her own hand move beneath Astra’s shorts, rubbing against her experimentally. She wasn’t trying to please her right now, she was mapping, like before, drawing her fingers through Astra’s folds, memorizing by touch, not by sight. 

“Fucking wet,” Alex breathed, more to herself than anything else. Astra looked up at her face and reached down to take Alex’s hand under her shorts, guiding it where she wanted. Alex swallowed, and pushed slowly inside her, uttering a small, involuntary whine. She kept her fingers still for a moment, panting against Astra’s neck like she couldn’t quite believe what she was doing, and Astra almost laughed at the sweetness of it. She bucked up against Alex’s hand, prompting her to keep going, meaning to tease her, but Alex met the movement, pushing her palm against her clit, taking her very pleasantly by surprise. She hissed as she felt Alex crook her fingers inside her and draw slowly out.

Heart thudding, she watched as Alex lifted her fingers to her mouth, sucking them off curiously. Her human moaned at the taste, eyes closed, and Astra couldn’t resist it—she pushed her off, and pinned her, getting a surprised yelp and hands grasping at her shoulders.

It wasn’t difficult from there to ease her human off into a whirling mess of ecstasy, and Astra followed soon after, collapsing sweaty and hot on top of her. She had enough presence of mind to shift slightly so that she wasn’t laying with her _entire_ weight on Alex—but still kept as much contact as possible.

She caught her breath first, humming out a laugh when she saw that Alex was still panting up at the ceiling, looking slightly bewildered, but in just about the most pleased way possible. Astra propped herself up on her elbow and combed her fingers soothingly through Alex’s sweaty hair until her breath finally evened out. Once it did, she angled her head up at Astra and swallowed thickly.

“So much for not doing anything,” she rasped out.

Astra grinned, leaning down to kiss her forehead. “So much for not doing anything,” she agreed. She shifted down so she could settle more comfortably against Alex, throwing an arm possessively across her waist. Alex was sticky, and hot, and Astra couldn’t be happier to be wrapped around such a mess of a human.

“I’m glad you found me,” she whispered against her skin.

“Took fucking long enough,” Alex muttered, and Astra huffed out a comfortable laugh. 

She skimmed her hand down to Alex’s side, brushing her fingers over a small bruise blooming from what looked to have been a moment of Astra gripping her too tight. There was a bite mark reddening on her neck as well.

“Look at that,” she said, feeling sorry, but not _that_ sorry. “A little revenge for those twelve years of paper cuts and monster attacks.”

Alex turned her head to look at her, a quiet smile on her lips, but Astra realized there was still guilt there. Maybe there always would be. Guilt for sharing love, guilt for bringing _pain_ to that love. Astra got the feeling she was going to have to spend quite some time dedicated to making her understand that guilt was unnecessary.

“I promise I’ll be more careful,” Alex said quietly, an apology as if she was thinking along the same lines as Astra. “I won’t do anything more that could put you in danger.”

“Hm,” Astra hummed. “While that’s very sweet of you, I get the feeling you rather _like_ being in dangerous situations.”

“Well—I mean, I only really started this job so I could look after my little sister—I’ll have to introduce the two of you by the way, I think you’ll love her—but…yeah, I guess I got a little…I started to like it,” Alex confessed. “But I’ll stop if you—“

“You know, Alex, I _am_ bullet proof,” Astra interrupted. “As long as you’re willing to bring me along on your missions, I think I can do a good job protecting you, and in turn, myself.”

“You want me to use you as a shield when I’m on a mission?” Alex asked, eyebrows raised. “I mean, I guess that’d keep us both from getting hurt…”

“We’re stronger together,” Astra said. She lifted a hand to brush back Alex’s hair. “We’ll keep each other safe. Rao knows you’ve kept me safe these past few years, ever since I learned what a soulmate was. I loved you every time I felt you.” Alex shifted closer to her, and Astra kissed her forehead again. “I’m glad you were never hurt because of me, but I’m sorry you never felt me, I’m sorry you felt alone.”

“Yeah, stupid sunshine, making you all invincible,” Alex grumbled jokingly.

Astra smiled softly. “You’re not alone now, though,” she told her. “Sunshine or no sunshine, pain or no pain…I’m all yours, I always will be.”

Alex pressed her lips together, and it looked very much like her eyes were welling up with tears. She _tsk_ ed quickly though, flicking her head up at the ceiling in feigned annoyance. “Kryptonians are such saps,” she muttered, but she squeezed Astra tight, like she’d never let her go.

Astra squeezed back, tangling their legs together.

They stayed awake the rest of the night, getting to know each other through other means besides sex. Talking, for one, which was new, and awkward, but somehow pleasant at the same time.

Pain would come and go as ever now, Astra realized—still strange, still foreign, but it felt right now. It was shared, but most importantly, it could be healed. 

She was still likely to repay Alex with as many bite marks as she could, though. Often. And lovingly. She had the feeling Alex wouldn’t mind.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Took me long enough to finish this up, sorry about that! But there you go, a nice sappy ending just like our girls deserve :)


End file.
